A Fashion Designer's Roman Retreat

For designer Giambattista Valli, there's no place like Rome

For more than three centuries the best and brightest of England and the Continent have headed to Rome. The artists who won the prestigious Prix de Rome and the young aristocratic dandies who hired them to do their portraits in the 1870s, jet-setters in search of a bit of la dolce vita in the 1960s, and the hordes of cell-phone-wielding exchange students landing at Fiumicino today have all looked to the ancient city as a source of artistic inspiration. Not to mention great souvenirs.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

But what of the young and talented who actually grow up in Rome? Where does their Grand Tour take them? For Giambattista Valli, the answer was obvious. Go East, young Roman. And Valli has traveled in that direction frequently, carrying on a long-term love affair with India, Turkey, Japan, and Indonesia. And he's brought back some amazing finds. "I don't shop," he announces in his rapid-fire, fluent English, which he honed on trips to New York and nights spent at Jackie 60, the legendarily decadent club in Manhattan's meatpacking district. "I buy things that inspire me, that give me emotion."

Most Popular

Many of these items are on display in the flat that the 38-year-old fashion designer recently bought in one of the oldest parts of Rome. A pied-à-terre for whenever he's in town—about one or two weekends a month—the apartment isn't far from the Piazza Navona or, for that matter, from the house where he was raised. "I love going back to my roots," says Valli, who worked for Roberto Capucci, Fendi, Krizia, and Emanuel Ungaro before launching his eponymous line in 2005. "There's still the same bar I used to go to for breakfast. And even though it had been years since I'd lived here, I didn't even have to order when I walked in," he says with delight. "They already knew what I wanted."

Valli has come home, part-time at least, but the evidence of where he's been in the meantime is everywhere. An antique Chinese wood bowl sits beside a 1970s steel-and-leather table in the entry. In the living room, a first- edition Noguchi paper lamp is perched next to a 1950s horn chair from Texas, and hanging above an 18th-century Rajasthani settee is a Francis Bacon rendering of a tortured soul, while Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe series animates an adjacent wall. In Valli's bedroom, where a colorful antique suzani from Turkey covers the bed, worn 19th-century Indonesian carved-wood doors make an ad hoc headboard. And in the guest room, atop a sleek steel-and-wood staircase, a giant drawing of a spider by Antonio Pierri greets visitors.

The whole amalgam—a little bit hip, a little bit hippie, a smidgen of Zen, and a dollop of rock and roll—is a perfect metaphor for both Valli's life. "I like things that are kind of eclectic, when one thing doesn't go with another," he says. "That's why I love Rome. The town itself is that way. It's where Fascist architecture meets classic Renaissance, where the ancient bangs up against the contemporary. It has a touch of everything. That's my style, and that's what my work is about. And it's the way I collect art and how I approach my home."

When Valli first found the 1,500-square-foot apartment, "there were rooms and rooms, and walls all over," he says. To help him clarify what was something of a warren, he turned to a friend, architect Luigi Scialanga. "I wanted a beautiful white box that I could put things in," says Valli. "I didn't want a space that was baroque." Scialanga tore down walls and opened up others, and painted the rooms white for a loftlike, minimal effect that's been softened and given just enough patina by the original wood ceiling beams. "The apartment was nice before, but Luigi transformed it into an amazing place," he adds. "And I like that it doesn't look too Roman. It really feels international."

Valli spends a great deal of his time traveling for work. But that only makes his Rome retreat more special, he says. "Rome holds my psyche in balance," the designer explains. "Whenever I'm there, it's like a holiday."

There's another reason the city beckons its native son home. "It's an escape," he says, smiling. "My friends like it because they can relax here, and the seaside is only 20 minutes away. And there's no fashion or glamour—just lots of beauty. It's where I go for inspiration."